


A Study In Silver

by Taisch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s07e13 Nightmare in Silver, Gen, The Vault (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29110686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taisch/pseuds/Taisch
Summary: After his execution, the Doctor's corpse was to be locked in an impenetrable vault for a thousand years to be guarded by the only other Time Lord available - the Master. Instead, she saves his life and takes his imprisonment as an opportunity to rekindle their old friendship. She even lets him out for a quick adventure, testing the possibility of change.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	A Study In Silver

**Author's Note:**

> I had the original idea for this story back during season 10, but didn't get around to writing it until now. Cybermen history is tangled up and contradictory (what with over 50 years of TV, books, comics, audios, etc.), and I don't know the half of it, so obviously I am taking some liberties with "canon".
> 
> Written for the Writers Anonymous Antagonist POV Challenge on fanfiction.net.

* * *

_"Your version of good is not absolute. It's vain, arrogant, and sentimental." - Missy (S10.08 "The Lie of the Land")_

_"What can change the nature of a man?" — Ravel (Planescape: Torment)_

* * *

Missy hesitated at the heavy vault door, allowing herself a moment of nostalgia. The Doctor was her prisoner again. She should savor the experience while it lasted, but boredom was always a problem, hence her plan for today. She took a deep breath, composed her thoughts, then stepped inside with a bright smile on her face. 

"Missy." The Doctor glanced up and strummed a few melancholy chords on his guitar in greeting. Acoustic, not electric; it would be too easy to improvise a weapon out of an electric guitar. Not that the lack of electricity would stop the man who had broken the entire universe to escape the Pandorica; this quantum fold chamber was child's play in comparison. The Doctor was imprisoned by choice. "Are you here to gloat?" 

"To see if you've repented of your wicked ways." Missy strolled over towards her old friend (they _were_ friends, however many times they had tried to kill each other) and he stood up to meet her, setting the guitar down next to his chair. 

" _My_ wicked ways?" He glared at her from beneath fierce eyebrows, face dramatically lit by the fake sunlight streaming in through the fake windows. "You're one to talk." 

"Ah, but do you ever listen? If not to me, then how about this." Missy pulled up a stack of warrants on her tablet. "Wanted in a dozen galaxies. The Doctor of War. The Oncoming Storm. Valeyard. Zagreus. Destroyer of Worlds. Timelord Victorious. The Sandman. Oh, and 'the eldritch monstrosity known only as the Other'?" She raised her eyebrows at the last one. 

"Before your time." The Doctor frowned, then amended his reply to, "Before _my_ time, as well." 

Missy snorted. The Other was a legend out of ancient Gallifrey. "Shall we add serious temporal trangressions to go with the multiple counts of genocide? Dear me, Doctor, you _have_ been busy." 

The Doctor grumbled, waving a hand in denial. "I may be an idiot, but I try to save lives. You're a cold-blooded murderer." 

"Not always. Sometimes I'm quite miffed when I knock them off." Missy smiled and circled around him, forcing him to turn to keep her in sight. "But that isn't the point." 

"What is the point, that you win? Well, I've been executed, my remains safely disposed of, so congratulations. You win!" He scowled and lowered himself back onto the chair again, picking idly at his guitar. 

Sometimes he was so thick. Sometimes? This willful blindness was a constant trait. "Do you remember when we were children, sneaking outside after nightfall to look up at the stars?" 

"Now who's being sentimental?" 

"What was it we wanted? To explore the universe, or... to control it?" 

The Doctor's eyes flashed up at her tone. "That was always you—" 

"Shush." Missy brushed her fingers over his lips. "Think." 

The Doctor pushed her hand away. "Hmmph." 

"You've been to the end of time, and what did you see there? Or rather, who?" 

"Me," said the Doctor, but Missy knew he meant Ashildr, one of his human pets. The Viking girl had renamed herself "Me" in an adorable spasm of egotism. 

"Exactly. _You_. You put her there. You made her immortal." Missy eyed the Doctor in disapproval. "A human woman, perfectly preserved through billions of years, past the deaths of stars and galaxies." 

The Doctor took offense. "Are you saying it was a mistake? Was I evil to save her life?" 

"To save her for eternity? To meet her at the end of everything? I'd say it was a tragic failure of imagination." 

The Doctor's expression became thunderous. 

Missy's tone turned gentle. "I think, in the course of exploring the universe, you've lost sight of your place in it. You've seized upon what you see as a duty of care, but the truth is, you're a prison warden, saying to the universe: here are the walls. Here you go and not one step further!" 

The Doctor snorted in wordless refutation. 

"No? Then prove me wrong, if you dare." Missy smiled. She had the perfect scenario picked out. A quick trip in her TARDIS, and then they would see... 

* * *

"Where are we?" demanded the Doctor. 

Missy shut the door behind her, her TARDIS disguised as one more in a wall of locker doors. Triple bunks, currently unoccupied, were visible down the corridor. "Crew quarters." She cocked her head. "Listen to those engines." The vibrations were too strong to be muffled by the cheap dampeners. 

The Doctor moved forward to press a hand on the bulkhead at the end of the passage. His eyes went to the standard emergency placard on the door. "Deep space starliner, Earth Empire... fiftieth century?" 

"Mmm." Missy closed her eyes for a moment, taking mental stock of their surroundings. A tiny bubble of life flew through a vast silent emptiness — cold, dark, devoid of stars — the only light the faint glimmer of faraway galaxies. It was all a matter of perspective. From this distance, a million stars looked tiny and fragile. "Doctor, have you ever considered what it takes to destroy an entire galaxy? Every sun, every planet, every stray rock and space station. To wipe out every speck of life and leave nothing behind but dust?" 

"Why?" The Doctor stared at her. "Have you?" 

She smirked. Of course she had. She had done it before, too. But that wasn't the point. "Your favorite monkeys came up with an ingenious solution, considering their crude technology." 

"Ingenious?" spat the Doctor. 

"Mmm-hmm. No black holes, no temporal manipulations, no dimensional engineering, no block transfer computations, no higher realities to play with. Just a few well-programmed machines. Ironic, really." They sent full machines against the half-machines, self-replicating intelligent machines, because it was impractical to burn up your own resources to fight a foreign enemy. An ancient strategy, but adapted on a grand scale. "You've heard of starkiller bot-fleets? Ever see them in action?" 

He blanched. "They were outlawed by the Time Lords. Any 'civilization' deploying them is removed and looped out of history." 

Missy laughed. "Naive as ever, my dear. There was one teeny tiny exception, if you recall, when Gallifrey turned a blind eye and deemed the event an integral part of the approved timeline." 

"Ah." The Doctor said through gritted teeth. "The Tiberian Spiral Galaxy. You... you can't mean to interfere." 

"Oops!" 

"It was the end of the Third Cyber War. If the Earth Empire falls, the repercussions..." 

"Live a little, Doctor." 

"Stop. Just stop it. We've been here before. You unleash some terror onto the universe, only to regret it and beg for my help." 

"Good times, yeah." Missy chuckled, delighted to see the panic dawning in the Doctor's eyes as he realized it was too late to stop her. She opened the door. "But I've changed up the script." 

* * *

Humans were pathetically easy to control, thought Missy. The more desperate, the easier, and the two humans on board the starliner were truly desperate. They knew the clock was ticking down on everything they cared about, and this was their last ditch gamble to save their home worlds. Their _loved_ ones. They were willing to do anything, even accept the help of alien mercenaries. 

That bit of deception didn't go over well with the Doctor. 

"Tch, tch, shush, you." Missy cut him off before he could blow their cover. She winked at the humans before turning to herd the Doctor away from the bridge. "You're not being hired to kill anyone. I told them you were an engineer." 

"Oh, is there a vacancy?" The Doctor glanced around. "Should I be looking for a shrunken corpse tucked away in a toolbox somewhere?" 

Missy scoffed. "They would have died anyway. This was the last ship off the planet, docked for repairs. They left in rather a hurry." 

"With only the captain and a single passenger on board, I take it." 

"Captain Ashad and Her Majesty the Queen of Tiberius," confirmed Missy. In the natural timeline, they were destined to be the last survivors of their galaxy, the only ones to escape through the interdict that had been in place for these last years of the Cyber War. With Missy's guidance, the ship slipped through the net like a wraith. 

Boosting the hyperdrive in order to beat the deadline, well, that took more skill, and was what had killed the engineers in the natural timeline. It was no challenge to two experienced Time Lords. They reached the emperor's flagship in good order. 

Time for the show to begin. Missy grinned in anticipation as they disembarked behind Her Majesty. 

The queen was an old woman with a face like porcelain — the mark of too many rejuvenation treatments. She carried herself with the air of someone accustomed to the fawning devotion of a thousand attendants, but they had fallen one by one, all to secure her own escape. In lieu of her usual retinue, Captain Ashad and the two Time Lords lent her gravity when she went to confront the emperor. 

Before they were allowed into his presence, they were screened for Cyber contamination. The queen bore it with disdain. Being royal, she had customized nanoforms in her blood that would cause her to spontaneously combust if conversion was attempted on her. Missy had surreptitiously drawn a blood sample while still on board the ship — something to save for a rainy day. Cleared, they were escorted to the throne room. 

The emperor was an old man, older than the queen. As was typical in this era, he had been old when he took the throne, to age in place until he reached the end of his endurance. Humans were simple creatures, unable to renew themselves through regeneration. To Missy's eye, this one, burdened by war, was near his limit. 

Nevertheless, his voice projected the illusion of strength. "Queen Arelia Regan Lux of Tiberius. You have abandoned your people, Your Majesty." 

"On the contrary, I am here to save them." The old woman matched the man in haughtiness. "Stay your hand, Imperator." 

"Your people are lost already. Better they die than be taken to swell the Cyber Legions," said the emperor. 

"A million star systems will fall!" 

The emperor shrugged. "A dwarf galaxy. We are emperor of a thousand galaxies. What's one more or less?" 

Actually about a dozen galaxies at best, thought Missy, all within the local cluster. But full marks for megalomania. She glanced at the Doctor, feeling the fury radiating from him, but knew he would do nothing. Not when this was _history_ , this was what had happened. To rub his face in it until he screamed and broke... ah, that would be something. 

Perhaps this would do it. A million star systems, a billion trillion people. 

She kept her eyes on him as the queen pleaded and the emperor refused in ever harsher terms. Necessary sacrifice. The greater good. The end to a terrible war. Victory. The Doctor had been there, done that, Missy knew. And finally found another way. But had the lesson stuck? 

"Let it not be said we are without mercy. You may stay and bear witness." The Emperor rose to his feet for the occasion. Missy glanced back at him. He needed no special equipment. The throne itself was his messenger, ready to transmit his commands to any galaxy in the empire. He had only to say the word, and the word was: "This is Emperor Vincentius Kevin Piotr..." 

Defeated, the queen of the doomed galaxy stood silent, head bowed. 

"...Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space—" 

"No!" Captain Ashad charged the throne. In the blink of an eye, he overpowered the ancient emperor, crushing the words from his throat. And in the face of the array of guns suddenly pointed at him, "Stop! Shoot me, he dies." 

Missy grinned. Oh, they had all been screened for weapons and Cyber technology, but a human didn't need technology to kill another of its own kind. They were such fragile creatures. All it had taken was a small mental nudge to give the good captain the courage to act in the moment. 

"You. Imperator. If you want to live, you send the signal. Shut them down. Forever. Blink if you agree..." Captain Ashad adjusted his grip on his prisoner, angling himself to shelter behind his human shield. "Me? I'm dead already. But say the word, the right word, or you die with me... Ah, knew you'd see sense." 

Seeing the emperor draw breath and open his mouth, Missy activated her timestop. In the blink of an eye, she and the Doctor were spectators standing in the midst of a tableau. 

"Don't you love museums?" Missy quipped. "Oh, do stop gaping. You may dress like a magician, but I'm the one putting in the prep-work here, Doctor." 

"What do you think you're doing?" The Doctor followed her when she stepped up to the throne. 

She peered into the frozen emperor's eyes. "What's the word, Vince? Oh dear, I know that look. That's the fanatical gleam of a martyr." She twirled to bop the unmoving Ashad on the nose. "You're out of luck, sunshine." 

"It was always going to happen this way," the Doctor said flatly. "You can't change that." 

"Can't I?" Missy met the emperor's eyes again. Easy enough to plant a telepathic compulsion. "I'm giving you a chance to be the Doctor. The man who heals..." 

"No." 

Missy turned to the Doctor. "You'll save one life, but not a billion trillion?" 

"They wouldn't be alive... they'd all be converted to Cybermen." 

Oh, how blind could he be? Missy tried again to open his eyes. "Is your Viking girl alive? Is a fly trapped in amber alive? The Cybermen learn. Adapt. Grow. They're the distilled essence of survival. That is, if they don't get blown to bits when that galaxy goes boom." 

"Even if the conversion process didn't strip away everything that makes them human, to alter the timeline on such a massive scale would tear apart the web of time!" 

"Oh, would it? That's what they teach at the Time Lord Academy, but who do you think set the curriculum? Who do you think you're 'protecting' the timeline for?" They had been out of school for centuries. After everything they had seen and done, how could the Doctor still be so obtuse? And it was worse now after the Time War. He was paralyzed with terror, worried about fixed points and 'changing' history. Missy pointed an accusing finger at the Doctor. "Who has the most to lose if the universe changes its shape, hmm? The top dogs. Rassilon. The Time Lords." 

"No." The stubborn old fool wouldn't budge. He ripped out the tiny box of Time Lord kit that Missy had smuggled onto the throne on a previous trip, and there went her timestop. 

Everything else went to hell. 

The emperor finished his sentence with, "...command _Desecration._ " He looked like he wanted to add an addendum, probably something about killing them all, but by then, Ashad had snapped his neck with his bare hands. 

Good for him, thought Missy. A bit of revenge was always worthwhile, even if it did nothing to help the people he was so desperate to save. 

Her Majesty the Queen of Tiberius clearly saw no point in vengeance. Or in anything. Eyes drained of hope, she murmured something under her breath. A moment later, she burst into flames. 

"Self-immolation by nanoform. What a way to go." Missy poked at the Doctor to get a move on, while the humans were still in shock. It only took a few seconds to partially repair her timestop device, and half a timestop was a hundred times better than no timestop at all. They avoided getting shot, for one thing. 

For another, the Doctor was able to extract Captain Ashad, dragging the half-paralyzed man with them all the way back to the starliner, and thence into Missy's TARDIS. 

Once they had dematerialized and were floating safely in the vortex, outside of time and space, Missy eyed their 'guest' in distaste. "What'd you bring him for?" 

Captain Ashad didn't even look grateful to be saved. He had gone blank. Shock, rage, grief, who knew with these humans? 

As for the Doctor, Missy hadn't needed to ask. If he could save one person from hell, he would save one person, however pointless it was. She let the Doctor persuade her to drop the sole survivor of the Tiberian Spiral Galaxy on a backwater planet millennia in the future, to minimize the chance of causing ripples in the web of time. 

Ashad continued to be ungrateful, but he lived. 

"He can make a new life for himself," the Doctor told Missy. 

"Is this how you assuage your guilty conscience?" Missy mocked him. "Did you expect him to build a shrine to praise your benevolence? I seem to remember a stained glass window in a church..." 

"Shut up. He's alive. That's what matters." 

Was it? Missy had a feeling there was more. While the Doctor brooded in the console room, calling up images of the dying Tiberian Galaxy on the view screen, Missy slipped off deeper into her TARDIS to consult the other Doctor she had stashed away — the Cyberplanner created in his image from his previous incarnation. 

"Hello, Mr. Clever." Missy had assembled her prize from remnants of Cybermen salvaged from what had once been Hedgewick's World and was now a blasted desolation. 

"Missy." The Cyberplanner was little more than a voice in a box. Missy knew better than to allow him any means of physically manipulating his environment. However, she had hooked him into the TARDIS circuits, using him to pin her paradox in place. As a result, he was able to access the time ship's senses to look through time and space. 

"Tell me, what happens to our Captain Ashad? Does he settle down, remarry and have two point five offspring?" 

As it turned out, he did, but his hatred for the human empire went deeper than his new life could encompass. Ashad's sympathies lay with the Cybermen, whose logic let them comprehend numbers past the point where humans stopped caring, who lacked the emotions to let them murder a galaxy and call it victory. A pity there were no Cybermen left in his era. The Doctor had made sure of that. 

"What a spoilsport." Missy patted the box that contained the Cyberplanner and leaned forward to whisper, "I know, let's give our lad a wee hint..." 

The telepathic circuits beamed the directions into Ashad's head while he slept. Once awake, he was mad enough to believe and follow. Because even thousands of years later, some trace of the Cyberiad persisted. Yet despite his devotion, Ashad would be rejected for full conversion — with his timeline fractured, anti-time contamination posed too great a risk. But the Cybermen wasted nothing, and the traces of anti-time were harnessed and bound into their new creation: the Cyberium with all its insight into future history, seeing it into existence. 

Survival. That's what Cybermen were about. That was why Mr Clever had consented to be converted into— 

"A paradox machine? But you didn't manage to change anything major enough to need a paradox machine. Why..." The Doctor barged in on her right on schedule. Missy hadn't made much attempt at secrecy, because what fun was a scheme if the Doctor never found out about it? 

And if he was one step behind, all the better. Missy smirked. "Go on. I'll give you three guesses." 

But they had played this game before, and this time he skipped straight to the end, using his sonic screwdriver to blast Mr Clever's hopes and dreams of a Cyberfuture to oblivion. 

Reality snapped back into place. The strand that was Ashad's timeline hung in the balance... and fell on the wrong side of the divide. Missy saw it in her mind's eye as she wavered between possibilities. The universe they returned to was not the same as the one they had left. 

Then she woke up and was a prisoner again. 

* * *

"Doctor." Missy looked up as he entered the vault. Her fingers danced over the keyboard, the piano's notes sounding a musical query. 

"Did you really think that was going to work?" 

Missy shrugged. "You have as many deaths on your hands as I, Doctor. It was always a flip of a coin as to which of us was the prisoner and which the gaoler." 

"And the rest of it? Our little excursion?" 

"I was bored," Missy said flippantly. 

Blind then, and blind now (figuratively if not literally, after having had his eyesight restored by the alien Monks). He wanted her to be _good_ , and she was willing to humor him and try, but good and bad weren't as easy to pin down as he seemed to think. What was the use of guilt? Would it make her better? Or would it blind her as it had him? Well, she was here now. A thousand years to change. Or not. 

They would just have to see, wouldn't they? 


End file.
